B-oldtimer wrote:I was looking at region 4 members it looks to me from thread past state champions that Warwick has never been to state tournament. All the rest in region 4 have been to state unless you count new coops formed but coop members have been to state. Region 2 Thompson hasn't gone to state tournament and several of the coops haven't gone but at least one of the participants of coops have gone on their own. If you went back in history there were lots of schools that didn't make it to state tournament. By the time you get back to 70's it was difficult to make the state tournament because of the numbers of schools and until late 70's all the tournaments were you had to win to advance to get to next level. I can remember where you had district tournaments where some districts had nine teams so you had just play in game to get into 8 man districts which were single elimination tournaments. Then regionals were 4 team tournament which you had to win. Also there was no seating in the regional tournaments just set up by rotation of districts playing each other. I can remember several times teams that were highly rated in the state didn't even make it out their districts like Langdon just before they went Class A they were rated number one in the state got beat in the district tournament.
Langdon was ranked 2nd in the state in 1970 when the Cardinals lost the district championship game to Nekoma and failed to advance to the regional tournament. However, Langdon had been to state three state years from 1966-68.
There are some great stories from this era. From 1967-70 Cathay lost just 6 regular season games, including a 20-0 record in 1969. However, Cathay could not get by New Rockford in the district tournament losing three straight years to the Rockets from 67-69, twice in doubt OT. However, in 1970 Cathay knocked off top-ranked New Rockford at the end of the regular season and again in the district championship game, 55-53. The school advanced to the region championship game before losing to Dunsieth, finishing the year 22-3.
The first year after the elimination of Class C (63-64) there were 281 teams in Class B, an average of almost 9 teams per district. There were five districts that had 11 teams in them. It was definitely a different era and obviously tough to get to state when there were roughly 35 teams in a region!
In 1974 there were 241 Class B teams.
In 1984 there were 211 Class B teams.
In 1994 there were 159 Class B teams.
In 2004 there were 139 Class B teams.
In 2014 there were 107 Class B teams.
Today there are 107 Class B teams. The trend of losing Class B teams to coop and consolidation is halting, which is why now is a good time for three classes!